By Sakuni Weerasinghe
So your work-from-home (WFH) day is not going well. You wake up late, skimp on breakfast, and carry a cup of coffee to your work table. Before you know it, it’s already 11 a.m. and you haven’t completed the things that were meant to be done in the morning. Your to-do list is staring at you seemingly in mockery. While you’re used to reading hard copies, highlighting and cutting off items as part of your editing process, your printer at home is malfunctioning. If only you could go out.
Four in the evening, you’re exhausted and have not even begun responding to any of the texts from your friends checking in on you. Your SMS notifications pop up with more Covid-19-related news. You’re on edge, wanting to check off the remaining 10 out of 15 items on your to-do list before hitting the bed, wanting to break the monotony, wanting to just spend some quality time with your significant other. At the same time, you can sense the simmering frustration. The 8 p.m. headaches are the first to alert you to this. You can’t believe that another day slipped through your fingers. A quick glimpse of your Instagram feed tells you that others have had a wonderful and productive day at home. Hey, they even made time for yoga. You wonder why it seems like it is only you who struggle with managing your life during this Covid-19 pandemic.
What you do not realise is that most of us go through some variation of the above narrative being placed under curfew and seemingly held captive in our own homes. While the larger good of staying at home is obvious, what we most often fail to acknowledge is the number of demands we place on ourselves to behave as if we were not surrounded by a pandemic. We have the same to-do lists, if not with more items added than usual. We force ourselves to learn tasks that would have previously warranted help from a colleague, and we do not even allocate much time for this learning to solidify. We add a few unhealthy habits of skipping meals in order to take up more business meetings or to make sure we stay on top of the game with online university lectures.
While at the office you may have broken the monotony of the workday by sharing a joke or two with your colleagues or grabbing lunch. Now that you’re home, you’re leaving them on “read” without even realising it. You ask yourself to shake off feelings of frustration, anger, loneliness, and anxiety. Perhaps even going as far as to tell yourself that “if others can do it, why can’t you?”, which only results in a few insulting labels thrown your way. Useless, worthless, lazy, might be a few of them.
As if physically isolating ourselves by staying at home is not enough, we psychologically isolate ourselves by entertaining thoughts that we are the only ones having a hard time managing our lives amidst a pandemic. We are that much harsher on ourselves, and berate ourselves and our bodies for not being able to function as normal. There is a misconception that your emotional reaction should be directly proportional to the magnitude of how the pandemic has affected you, for example, by having a member of your family or friends diagnosed, taken into quarantine, or passing away. However, we have to realise that all of us have been affected in a myriad of ways – personally, socially, financially, occupation-wise, etc. Your living experience has taken a turn that is far from normal. Hence, your emotional reactions are 100% valid. You’re allowed to be upset, angry, nervous, lonely, and frustrated. Instead of criticising ourselves, why don’t we try to be a little kinder towards ourselves?
Self-compassion is treating yourself with kindness, understanding yourself, and growing to appreciate who you are and what you do. Think of how you would talk to a friend when they’re going through a hard time. You would listen, tune into their emotions, validate their experience, use kind words, help them see their positive attributes and strengths, and empower them. Why not extend the same courtesy to ourselves, especially at a time like this, when we could be a little more understanding of having to readily adapt to a new normal?
If you are taking a little longer to wake up, it could mean that your body needed that rest after a long day of work. If you don’t seem to be ticking off tasks from your to-do list as quickly as before, it’s probably because you’re adapting to fewer resources while working from home. If others on social media seem to be ahead of their game, it is worth remembering that these platforms only allow us to see parts of people’s lives and usually the better ones. Chances are that they are struggling too.
So how do you engage in self-compassion?
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- Take a moment to acknowledge your circumstances. You’re going through a tough time. Hence, it is not rational to demand that you function as before. This gives you the space to be a little easier on yourself.
- Next, validate your emotional experience. This is the most important first step you can take in building resilience in managing your life amidst the effects of the pandemic. You’re allowed to feel your feelings, not just how you feel on the surface, but also how you feel on a deeper level. If you want to cry or scream into your pillow in frustration, it is completely understandable. Once you validate your emotions, you can take a look at a few healthy coping mechanisms that help you manage them. For example, engaging in a simple deep breathing relaxation exercise when anxious, journaling when worried, engaging in mindful meditation practices, and using distractions when stressed out. Engaging in a soothing touch, for example, a pat on your arm, placing your hands on your heart or giving yourself a hug can be great ways to show yourself compassion.
- Change your self-talk. Once you acknowledge your circumstances and validate your emotions, this will be a little easier. Tell yourself “STOP” when you find yourself branding yourself as “lazy and worthless” based on how unproductive you were during the day. Catch yourself when you would criticise yourself. Offer yourself alternative ways of thinking about the situation or behaviour. Make it a point to ask yourself “what would I tell a friend who is experiencing this?”
- Recognise the common humanity – the fact that you are not alone in this experience. In fact, the entire world is going through this experience alongside you. You might be asking yourself “why me”, and it is at this point that you ought to remind yourself that everyone is struggling with having to work from home, cancelled events and trips, inability to see friends and family in person, etc.